By John Edward Thomas Moynahan as told to Steve.

It took me a bit to translate this from baby drool to English but here goes.

• New England Patriots cheerleaders come by and feed me when Pop and I are hanging for the weekend.
• Pimpin’ velour hooded robe with satin trim with monogrammed initials, the day care hotties are gonna love this
• Case of Stetson cologne for hot infants and toddlers
• Movado watch, we had to have a bunch of links removed
• Tilt ‘n Steer racer I already crashed into Belichick he threw his hoodie at me as I sped away
• access to the private jet
• Gillette Stadium Luxury Box suite and someone has to keep that lady who looks like Dr. Ruth away from me, she scares the crap out of me
• lifetime supply of Victoria’s Secret, Christian Dior and Ralph Lauren gift cards for all the babes
• Sports Illustrated
• Poster of Dad
• DVD of Dad on SNL
• My own Super Bowl bling
• Dad’s book
• My weekend Mommy gets to take me to visit with her other super model friends

The New England Patriots know their 2008 opponents. In addition to home and away games against their three AFC East rivals, they will also play the teams in the AFC West and NFC West as well as the other two AFC Division winners. The NFL will announce the dates and times at a later date.

2008 Home Games

2008 Road Games

Great news for Patriots fans who don’t get the NFL Network. The NFL has announced a three-network simulcast as the NFL Network feed will be broadcast on CBS and NBC. This will be the first time one game has been shown on three networks at the same time.

“We have taken this extraordinary step because it is in the best interest of our fans,” Commissioner Goodell said. “What we have seen for the past year is a very strong consumer demand for NFL Network. We appreciate CBS and NBC delivering the NFL Network telecast on Saturday night to the broad audience that deserves to see this potentially historic game. Our commitment to the NFL Network is stronger than ever.”

The announcement comes on the heels of Sen. Kerry’s remarks about a possible hearing involving the NFL and the NFL Network.

So for those of you who were planning on going out to an establishment and watching the game, you can head over to your local package store and pick up some beer and enjoy the game in the comforts of your own living room in HD.

This “This is Sportscenter” promo came out on December 6th but surprisingly the first time I saw it was today. I’ve seen the ad where they are in the Winnebago a few times but not this one.

The first video is the “This is Sportscenter” feature and the second is the one of them in the Winnebago. Enjoy the videos.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=y2iT3wQnAqQ[/youtube]

http://youtube.com/watch?v=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZ-4ribUm9k[/youtube]

Much has been made of the New England Patriots pursuit of perfection this season. Every time the possibility of a perfect season comes up the 1972 Miami Dolphins are mentioned and rightfully so they were the NFL’s only post-merger perfect squad going 14-0. The Dolphins also added 3 playoff wins as they won Super Bowl VII and finished with a 17-0 record.

Most of the 1972 Dolphins don’t seem to mind when a team looks like it has a chance at an unbeaten year it gives them some face time and some recognition for their wonderful feat. Former Dolphins running back Mercury Morris though seems to have a severe disdain for any team who is approaching his vaunted Dolphins. Mercury has done his angry best to belittle other teams accomplishments, wrote a rap about being undefeated and has generally played the angry old man route to its most annoying. But Morris said it best I think when he said “don’t call me when you’re on the turnpike, call me when you’re in my neighborhood”.

Well don’t look now Merc because there is a team in your ‘hood baby, they’re on your street and that beeping sound you hear is the moving truck backing up the to the house next door.

According to the Baltimore Sun, U.S. Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) is getting into the act of trying to get this Saturday’s NFL game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants moved from the NFL Network to NBC.

The NFL Network is a cable-based network that is in only about 35 million households nationwide due to a battle with cable operators over channel positioning and pricing.

The game meanwhile pits the first NFL team in 35 with a chance to finish a season undefeated as the 15-0 Patriots face the Giants in the season finale for both clubs at Giants stadium in the Meadowlands.

On Christmas Eve Day Kerry officially requested through Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner, that the game be placed on national television and has threatened Senate hearings if it is not.

“Under the unfortunate circumstance that this matter remains unresolved, leaving 60 percent of households across the country – including thousands in Massachusetts – without access to Saturday’s game, I will ask the Senate Commerce Committee to hold hearings on how the emergence of premium sports channels are impacting the consumer,” he wrote to Goodell today in a letter released by his office.

“As a Bostonian, I couldn’t be more pleased that in just five days, the New England Patriots will attempt to become the first NFL team in 35 years to finish the regular season with an undefeated record,” Kerry wrote. “But as someone who represents all of Massachusetts and not just those in the Boston media market, I remain deeply troubled that today as many as 250,000 Massachusetts households, and millions of Patriots fans nationwide, may be denied access to this historic sporting event. …

“For a game of this significance to be used as a bargaining chip or point of leverage between corporations locked in a dispute would say a great deal about the esteem in which America’s football fans are held by the big interests,” Kerry wrote.

Seeing as entry into Carl Everett’s Crazy Hall of Fame should be special I wanted to give people the opportunity to vote on its potential new members. Much like the BBWAA (Baseball Writer’s Association of America) controls the fate of players trying to gain entry to the Baseball Hall of Fame you now control the fate of the Carl Everett nominees.

Here are the voting rules:

1. As of time of balloting all nominations are closed and there can no write in candidates. The only eligible candidates are those listed on the ballot.
2. For consideration a candidate must have done something you feel is batshit crazy while on the field of play. Acts occurring outside of the field of play are ineligible. The field of play shall be defined as the court, rink, field, locker room, interview room or any other area associated with a practice, game or contest in progress or immediately before or after such practice, game or contest.
3. Nominees are placed into two categories regular and veteran’s committee. Regular nominee’s committed an act in 2007. Veteran’s nominees are being considered based on their complete body of work or for a past action.
4. The nominee’s are voted for in total, you are not restricted by category. You can vote for up to but no more than 7 of 13 nominees. Ballots with more than 7 selections will be subject to ridicule and scorn and not be counted.
5. To gain entry a nominee needs minimum of 50% of the votes cast.
6. All votes must be returned by December 29, 2007.

The 2008 Carl Everett’s Crazy Hall of Fame nominees are:

Continue reading →

Hot Stove Cool Music in association with and for the benefit of A Foundation To Be Named Later will be holding a pretty cool fundraiser on Saturday January 5^th from 12:30 p.m. to 3 p.m. at the State Street Pavilion at Fenway Park. For $100 you can join Boston sports executives for a roundtable discussion on:

Building a Winning Enterprise: Excellence on the field, court and ice — and in the community

Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein, Celtics board member Steve Pagliuca, Bruins Vice President Cam Neely & others will share insights and observations from Fenway, Foxboro and the Garden.

That is immediately followed by:

Inside Baseball 2008:

With ESPN’s Peter Gammons, Baseball Statistician Bill James, Blue Jays general manager J.P. Ricciardi, Red Sox general manager Theo Epstein and other surprise guests!

Continue reading →

 

It seems New York Giants fans are selling their tickets to Saturday’s game against the undefeated New England Patriots by the boatload. The ticket broker site StubHub reports that this could be one of their Top 25 best selling events. Apparently Giants fans would rather cash in on their team than support them.

“It looks like it’s on pace to be one of our top 25 events for all time. It’s definitely one of our hot sellers,” Joellen Ferrer, a spokesman for StubHub told the Star-Ledger. “Although it’s meaningless to the Giants, it’s still going to be a great game to watch.”

As of Monday nearly 3,000 tickets to the game were available on StubHub for as much as $1,600 apiece.

StubHub’s sister site Ebay reported that after the Giants beat the Bills on Sunday more than 200 ticket holders put their seats up for auction.

If the Patriots win on Sunday they would be the first NFL team to go undefeated in 35 years joining the 1972 Miami Dolphins as the only clubs to do so. And with all the Giants fans bailing on the game it may even seem like an additional home game for New England even though it’s being held at Giants Stadium. Oh by the way Tom Brady is 7-0 in games played at the stadium.

First of all Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of you now it’s into the red zone where we start with the coach, Bill Belichick and his weekly visit with the local Boston media. The coach’s WEEI segment took the week off due to the holiday. He talked about the upcoming game with the Giants, Troy Brown and the schedule for the short week with the game on Saturday and the holiday on Tuesday.

Rodney Harrison called into WEEI in Boston for a Patriot’s Monday visit with Paul Perillo and Butch Stearns sitting in for Dale & Holley.

Some of the players are now starting to talk a little bit about 16-0 but mostly in the way they’ve talked about the next game all year. When they were 8-0 they talked about being 9-0. Now that they’re 15-0 it’s starting to creep into the conversations. Here’s Tedy Bruschi’s take:

“We’re not shooting for anything. We have to focus on who is in front of us. A small piece has to be in our mind what we can achieve. We want our fans to have fun and you can talk about it. Now that we’re 15-0, yes, we want to be 16-0.”

Continue reading →